Nightmares
by Ryan Brooklyn
Summary: Oneshot. John awakens from a nightmare to find Cameron in his room. What she tells him is hardly reassuring. John/Cameron if you squint and tilt your head. Ep-tag for "Brothers of Nablus." Spoilers for Second Season.


**A/N: Just a little oneshot of my latest TV show obsession.**

**Disclaimer: **_I own nothing whatsoever that has to do with the Terminator movies or the Sarah Connor Chronicles. Wish I did, but don't. Such is life. Unfortunately. Oh yeah, and I don't own the song "Set Me Free" by Casting Crowns either. Casting Crowns owns it . . . obviously._

**Rating: **PG-ish I guess . . .

**Genre:** Hurt/Comfort/Friendship

**Summary:** Oneshot. John awakens from a nightmare to find Cameron in his room. What she tells him is hardly reassuring. John/Cameron if you squint and tilt your head.

**Nightmares**

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**_**It hasn't always been this way  
I remember brighter days  
Before the dark ones came  
Stole my mind  
Wrapped my soul in chains**_

_**Now I live among the dead  
Fighting voices in my head  
Hoping someone hears me crying in the night  
And carries me away**_

_**Set me free of the chains holding me  
Is anybody out there hearing me?  
Set me free**_

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_The dream started out normally. As normal as any strange dream starts, at least. He was walking down the hallway of the old house, running his hand over the peeling paint of the walls. It already smelled like gasoline. He could feel electricity in the air, as if the bomb had gone off right next to him._

_He rounded a corner and then suddenly came face-to-face with him. Sarkissian. The man leered at him and reached out. He did not think. He just turned and ran. Harder than he had ever run before. Faster than he thought he was able. It still was not enough. Hands grabbed him from behind and dragged him down. Fingers curled around his throat and Sarkissian turned him around roughly so that they were nose-to-nose._

"_You should have closed your eyes, boy," Sarkissian hissed. "You should have let mommy take care of me. Now I will haunt your dreams forever."_

_He could not breathe. He scrambled to get a hold of the hands that held his throat but they only squeezed tighter. Stars appeared as he gasped for breath. Sweat poured down his face as he was rammed against the wall, pain shooting up his back from the blow. He would have gasped for breath if he could but all he could do was open and close his mouth like a fish out of water. Sarkissian's face grew closer and closer until it was the only thing he could see._

"_Die, John Connor. Die slowly."_

"John?"

Blue-green eyes opened slowly and fixed their gaze on the ceiling above them. The boy lying on the bed took a deep breath of air. How sweet that air tasted. It filled his lungs with a refreshing sound and slowly went back out again. John Connor sat up, flinging his legs over the side of the bed. He sat there, fingers digging into the side of his mattress for a moment before he lifted his hand and ran it shakily through his closely-cropped hair.

Someone was at the door. The person who had spoken to him. John turned his head to look at her. She stood in his doorway, still as a statue, her head tilted to one side like it often did when she was trying to understand something. But she could never understand. Not this. Not now.

"I'm fine, Cameron," he said, doing his best to keep his voice calm as he turned his gaze straight ahead.

Cameron did not leave. Instead she took another step into the room, her hand on the doorknob. She was barefoot and her feet did not make a sound as she took another small step. He ignored her.

"I heard a noise. It sounded like you were choking," she told him. Normally a person would sound concerned when they spoke those words. She just sounded like she always did. Emotionless. Impassive. Dead.

"I _said_ 'I'm fine,'" John said flatly, turning his head to look at her again. He was sorry he did. She was wearing that shirt again. That stupid shirt that barely could be called a shirt. He wondered vaguely if someone had mislabeled it and it was actually a slip disguised as a shirt. A shirt was supposed to cover you. What she was wearing barely covered her at all. He turned his gaze away again to the far wall, seeing the paint and wondering if his mom would let him repaint it. He was thinking of black. That was a good depressing color.

Cameron stepped farther into the room. She was very close now; he could see her bare legs out of the corner of his eye. Of course she was wearing her short, shorts. It was summer. The heat was getting to them all. She reached out a hand and swiped it at his forehead. He leaned away from it, but she touched him all the same.

"You're sweating," she informed him. As if he did not already know that.

"It's because it's freaking hot in here," he snapped, shoving off the bed and moving over to the air conditioner. He turned it on higher and turned back to his bed. Cameron was sitting on it, staring up at him.

"I hadn't noticed," she told him. Of course, because what she felt was always what was.

He just gave her a look and moved around her to get back into bed. He sat up against the headboard and looked at her. "Is there something you _want_?" he asked her coldly, frowning slightly.

"I wanted to make sure you were alright," Cameron said, and tilted her head again. "You had a nightmare."

"I did not have a nightmare," John stated, wondering if she had "scanned" him when she had touched him and that was how she knew.

"Yes, you did."

"Oh, so you're a lie detector now?"

She tilted her head back into its upright position. "No," she replied, although she hardly needed to. They both knew she was not a lie detector.

"Yeah so, I didn't have a nightmare." John hoped that would settle the matter and she would leave.

"Was it about Sarkissian?" Man, the girl never let up. John decided if it would be better to just humor her.

"Okay, yeah, sure, fine. It was about Sarkissian. Yeah, Sarkissian came into my bedroom, served me tea, sang a stupid song about a bunny and then left. That was my nightmare."

Cameron blinked. "That does not sound like a nightmare," she commented idly.

"That's because I didn't _have_ one." John wondered vaguely if he was steadily growing more and more inexperienced with lying. For some reason no one seemed to believe him anymore. "Besides, what do you know about nightmares?" He hoped that would offend her enough to leave.

She sat there still for a moment, and then stood slowly. It was then that he felt bad. He always felt bad after the fact. But she was just a machine, so it did not matter in the end whether or not he had hurt her little robot feelings.

She took a step away but then turned back, her hands held still at her sides. "Nightmares are dreams that go bad," she said, and John thought he should have figured she would not give up that easily. He settled back to listen to what she had to say. "They start out harmless and then grow worse. You find you can't breathe. You start sweating. You want to get out but you can't. The darkness grows deeper and chokes you. There's pain. And fear. And you feel like you can't escape."

John stared at her, surprised by the words coming out of her mouth. Had she memorized that somewhere or was she for real? She took a step closer, her eyes boring into his.

"The fear grows into despair and you're afraid of falling. Of running. You run until you can't anymore. You cry out but no one hears you. No one can save you. You're always taken back to where they hurt you. To where they try to kill you. And you can't escape. You can never escape."

John felt his throat dry. He stared at her and her at him and for a long moment they stayed that way. Then he cleared his throat and licked his cracked lips.

"What happens then?" he asked in a voice that did not sound like his own. It sounded hoarse. Hesitant. Afraid.

Cameron tilted her head slowly, her brown eyes remaining on his blue-green ones. "Then you wake up," she said, and a rush of air left him. He felt weak. She stepped closer and then knelt on the bed close to him. He looked away, his breathing heavy from the horrifying mental picture she had drawn for him. She leaned forward and he could feel her hair brush his shoulder. Keeping his gaze away, he swallowed hard and willed her to just go away.

"You cried out in your sleep," she whispered to him. "You were sweating. Tears were on your face. That is why I knew you had a nightmare." John closed his eyes and did not open them until she had moved away.

Looking up at her, he swiped at his face, feeling the tears he had not known were there. He stared at them for a moment before he looked back up at her.

"I'm fine," he said again, although this time his voice was not as firm, nor his stubbornness as strong. Cameron turned and walked back to the door, stopping before she left, hand once more resting on the knob. She looked back over her shoulder at him.

"I could stand outside your door. I don't sleep."

"Thanks, but that wouldn't really make me feel any better," John said, his breathing evening out enough for him to give her a tiny smile. He tried to relax his body from its tense state even as she stared at him, as if trying to assess him just by looking at him. He lifted a hand in goodbye to indicate to her, once more, that he was indeed fine.

"Goodnight, John," Cameron said, and closed the door behind her.

John flopped back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling, trying to get Cameron's words out of his head. Had he really cried out? He would have to work on that. Nightmares were the last thing he needed to worry his mom about, especially since she had been having so many herself. Closing his eyes, he tried to get some nightmare-less sleep. He tried to think of other things. Pleasant things. Things about his life before all this cut-and-run business. His time with Charley. His time with Riley. The good times with his mom, few and far between though they were. There was little to pick and choose from, but he knew they would have to do.

Cameron waited until she could hear John's even breathing that indicated he was asleep. Then she slowly opened his door and crept back in. Looking down at his form on the bed, her eyes roved over his body, thinking he hardly looked like the man he was going to become. Leaning forward, she reached out a hand hesitantly and carefully ran her fingers through his hair. He claimed she could not feel, despite her assurances that she could. This was something she could feel. She ran her fingers lightly down his face, glad the nightmare had taken enough out of him to make him sleep this deeply.

Sitting down on the bed, she continued to gaze upon him. She had sworn to protect him, and that was what she was going to do. Day and night she would watch over him. Glancing over at the door, she could see the moonlight shining down the hall from the window. Morning would come in a couple hours, but she would stay with him until then. It was her duty.

Slowly she stood, careful not to move the bed. She stood at the foot of the bed facing him, staring down at him. And there she remained until dawn broke through the window of the hall and light shone in through the door. When John woke up, she was gone without a trace. But he could not shake the feeling that someone had been watching him and that, despite the fact, he had slept better than he had in years.

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**So that's the little oneshot. I'm rather proud of it, actually. Please review and tell me what _you_ think. :-D**


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